Research Interests and Projects:

The Archaeology of China with special emphasis on the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Northeast China.

Intercultural interaction and the genesis of local identities in China during the pre-imperial era.

Current field research: Co-PI of the Archaeological field project, The Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Community in Northeast China. (The Hebrew University, Jilin University, Liaoning Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) in Western Liaoning province, China. The genesis of the Qin state and empire (with Dr. Yuri Pines).

Co-PI of the Archaeological field project, The Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Community in Northeast China. (The Hebrew University, Jilin University, Liaoning Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) in Western Liaoning province, China. Co-PI, Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project (University of Pittsburgh, Jilin University, Hebrew University) in the Chifeng area, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. the project combines the regional survey of areas not yet covered with test excavations and the mapping of sites. In addition, the researchers conduct geological work and reconstruct the paleo environment of this region in an attempt to understand the local trajectory of socio-political changes. (http://www.pitt.edu/~chifeng/)

Positions in Other Academic and Research Institutions

2004-2005 - Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA.

1997-2004 - Vice President, Society for East Asian Archaeology.

Other Academic Activity

2010-2013 - Member of a Scholion Research Group, “Archaeologies of Memory: Founding, Decline and Destruction.”

2008 - Member of the editorial board of Historia (the Journal of the Israeli Historical Society).

2008 - Organizer, (with Yuri Pines), International Workshop, “The Birth of Empire: The State of Qin Revisited.” Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, December 10-19, (co-sponsored by the Israeli Science Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Studies).

List of Publications:

DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

“The Emergence of Complex Society in Northeast China from the Fourth to the First Millennia B.C.: A Perspective from the Chifeng Area in Inner Mongolia.” Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. Advisor: Professor Katheryn M. Linduff.

Books

2015 - Shelach, G. The Archaeology of Ancient China: From Prehistory to the Han Dynasty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2012 - Settlement Patterns in the Chifeng Region, (as on of the PIs of the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Research Project). Center for Comparative Archaeology, University of Pittsburgh.

Books Edited

2011 - Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Project, eds., 2011.Settlement Patterns in the Chifeng Region. Pittsburgh: Center for Comparative Archaeology, University of Pittsburgh (The final report of the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Project of which I am one of the PIs. 150 pp + electronic access to the full dataset of the Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Project: http://www.cadb.pitt.edu/chifeng/index.html).

2013 - Shelach, G. “Steppe Land Interactions and their Effects on Chinese Cultures during the Second and Early First Millennia BCE.” In R. Amitai and M. Biran, (eds.), Eurasian Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change. Hawaii University Press. (19 pp).

2010.“Memory, Amnesia and the Formation of Identity Symbols in China.” The 75th Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology (SAA), St. Louis, USA. April 14-18, 2010.

2009. “Settlement Patterns, Environmental Condition and the Beginning of Agriculture and Sedentary Life-Way in Northeast China.” International Symposium On Environmental and Social Changes in Ancient China, Shandong University, China, 15-19 October 2009.

2008. “From the Younger Dryas to the Yellow River: The Relevancy of West Asian Correlations between Environmental Change and the Beginnings of Agriculture for an Understanding of East Asian Prehistory” (With Leore Grosman). The 73rd Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology (SAA), Vancouver, Canada. March 26 - March 30, 2008

2008. “Ecological Conditions and Changing Patterens of Human Adaptation in the Chifeng Survey Region”, Fourth Worldwide Conference of the Society for East Asian Archaeology (SEAA), Beijing, China, June 2-5.

2008. “Collapse or Transformation? Anthropological and Archaeological Perspectives on the Fall of the Qin”, The Birth of Empire: The State of Qin Revisited. Workshop at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, December 10-19, 2008.